There is no shortage of great app ideas being killed off every year, but not because these ideas weren’t good, but simply because their inventors missed out on planning. They got right into building wireframes, hiring a developer, or writing an app prototype, just to find out that three months later, they were solving a non-existent problem, trying to reach an incorrect audience, or simply working on an uninteresting product.

Your app idea planning checklist is not some kind of pointless bureaucratic paperwork; it’s the way to ensure that you’re developing a product that people need, and that you’ll be spending all your money and time on something worthwhile. Ask these questions before building an app:

1. What Problem Does This App Actually Solve?

This seems like an obvious point, but it is the point that most startup entrepreneurs answer too generally. “It helps people to save time” is not an answer; it is a category. You have to be more precise about the exact situation of frustration your app solves. What task takes a person 20 minutes now that will take only 20 seconds with your application?

Try to write down your problem in one sentence without mentioning your app and its features. If you cannot do this, then you don’t have a clear problem, and you are having a solution in search of a problem. And that is the most important thing to know when planning an app development process, since everything else follows from this point: your features, marketing strategy, etc.

2. Who Exactly Is This For?

Not “everyone” is your target audience. In order to create successful products, you need to be obsessed with an initial small beachhead of users before moving outwards. Who are you targeting? Are you targeting busy moms/dads, freelancing accountants, gym owners, or college students who are preparing for their exams?

What do they use now to badly solve this problem (Excel, sticky notes, competitor’s app)? Be as detailed as possible in describing the demographics, technical skills, and current sources of solving the problem. It’s not only about the marketing part but also about UI design, onboarding flow, and even development platform prioritization.

3. Does This Problem Already Have a Solution?

Be critical of your competitors. How do they excel? What is being complained about in relation to the app store reviews? Competitive analysis is not about imitation but about identifying that hole in the market. If five apps are currently doing a great job in solving this problem, then your approach should definitely be distinct rather than more appealing.

If there are no competitors at all, this could actually be a sign of concern as well. It could mean that there is no market at all, rather than a blue ocean. Find out why others have not developed such apps.

4. What's the Core Feature,  and What Can Wait?

This is where founders on their first venture tend to overbuild. They think about an app that is packed with everything, including social functionality, game-like mechanics, tiered accounts, and an administrative interface, before the first user has even tested the basic function of the app.

Instead, ask yourself what the one thing is without which the app becomes meaningless. It is the MVP (minimum viable product). All else that is not absolutely necessary for now, just put it on your phase two list. The discipline can save you up to fifty percent in time and costs in your early development process.

5. What Platform Should You Build First?

Questions that need to be asked before starting on the application are whether the users need iOS, Android, responsive website, or any other type of hybrid application, such as React Native or Flutter? All depends on who your target audience is (iPhone or Android users?), what is your budget (native applications for both the platforms can cost much more than cross platform app development), and how do you plan to distribute the application?

6. How Will This App Make Money?

Even if monetization is not your primary concern at the moment, you still have to have some theory behind it. Subscription model? Single sale model? Freemium with in-app purchases? Advertising support? B2B licenses? Different choices will imply different architectures; an application based on subscription will require implementation of user registration, billing system, and so on from scratch, while an advertising-supported application will need analytics and integration with advertising service providers' SDKs.

This question is one of the most frequently omitted from the brief about the application and its implementation.

7. What Does Success Look Like in 90 Days?

Ambiguous goals ("gain many users") won’t provide you with anything quantifiable. Set a quantifiable goal such as getting 500 sign-ups, 100 paid users, 40 percent of week-one retention, or 20 pieces of qualitative user feedback. It will provide everyone on the team to strive towards, and not just endless arguing about how “good” something is to be launched.

8. What's Your Realistic Budget and Timeline?

Come clean with yourself in this matter. Being too optimistic about costs and time needed is one of the top reasons why the development of apps gets stuck in the middle of the process. Make sure you get several quotes from different developers, and in any case, add the necessary margin of 20-30 percent in terms of costs and time.

In case your budget does not fit your ambitions, reduce the scope of the project rather than the quality. The latter will serve you better for sure.

9. What Data Will You Collect, and How Will You Protect It?

Even the simplest of apps have access to personal information such as emails, location data, financial details, and health data. All these must be considered and determined at the outset of planning how much data is required for your app (less is always better), where you'll store the data, and what regulations and policies must be considered for your app (GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA, based on your user and industry).

10. How Are You Planning to Conduct User Testing Before Launch?

Think about your testing process ahead of time. Are you planning to do a closed beta test? Show off a clickable prototype to twenty target users before any code is written? Create a waitlist to assess demand? Embedding feedback into your process, rather than treating it as an add-on, allows for early identification of usability issues and assumptions that don't hold up.

Putting It All Together

There are no "right" answers for any of those questions; yet, each question should be answered, on paper, before beginning the development process. Those founders who regard answering those questions as a startup app planning exercise, and not just another meaningless formality, release their product faster, spend less money, and build something people use.

If you are asking yourself about how to plan an app before development in a more organized manner, think about using those ten questions as the basis of a document, a one-to-two-page app brief you could show to any developer or designer. It would help you save some money, avoid scope creep, and provide your entire team with a single point of truth from day one.

It is best to answer those questions before building an app, before becoming emotionally and financially involved with a particular solution. The second-best opportunity to do that is right now.